For the Record: Jimmy Cliff, The dB's

Although he's tossed in a few torrid reggae classics on nearly every album he's recorded, there hasn't been an across-the-board, consistently great, wonderful sounding Jimmy Cliff album since his true breakthrough of 1972: his songs on the soundtrack to "The Harder They Come" and its immediate follow-up, the mighty and mournful "Struggling Man." There simply hasn't been the strength of empowered lyrical composition and dynamic melody to go along with his trademark angelic wail since that time.

That is, until "Rebirth."

Mirroring Mr. Cliff's longtime relationship with his producer, the late Leslie Kong, Tim Armstrong (of ska punk's Rancid) gives the aged-like-fine-wine Jamaican icon the sympathetic, roots-reggae sound that was part of Cliff's initial groundswell. The pair create a softly spiraling groove to back the pensive, troubled-world lyrics that made Mr. Cliff a universally concerned citizen. While "Children's Bread" and "One More" look for solutions with soul as their self-help aid, a loving take on Rancid's "Ruby Soho" and a torrid version of The Clash's slow-dub sensation "The Guns of Brixton" rocks Cliff's casbah and updates the track, applying it to contemporary troubles in the Middle East.

This is the first album in 30 years by the original lineup of the dB's -- Peter Holsapple, Chris Stamey, Gene Holder and Will Rigby. That's the foursome who in 1981 and '82 delivered the one-two punch of "Stands for Decibels" and "Repercussion." It was the jangle heard 'round the world, helping set the template for indie-pop.

"Falling off the Sky" proves to be a winsome return. Melodic pop songcraft again holds sway. The songs, meanwhile, retain a certain air of youthful earnestness while also reflecting the musicians' advancing age. They can be yearning ("Send Me Something Real") and wistful ("Far Away and Long Ago"), sweetly romantic ("Before We Were Born,") and poignant ("She Won't Drive in the Rain Anymore"). But a sharper edge also surfaces, as on the punchy, garage-rock-inflected opener, "That Time Is Gone." In that vein even drummer Rigby gets into the act -- his pointedly clever "Write Back" is his first composition to appear on a dB's album.

-- Nick Cristiano, The Philadelphia Inquirer

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